


The Hidden Sword

by WingedFlight



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Experiment House, F/M, the perils of progressive schooling, the problem with swords, them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:13:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26258467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingedFlight/pseuds/WingedFlight
Summary: Something Strange had occurred on the hill behind the Experiment House. Now, after a week of licking Their wounds, the school bullies are regrouping. Adela Pennyfather is determined to maintain their position at the top of the student hierarchy, while Jill is equally determined not to let this happen. Eustace just wants to swing a sword.
Relationships: Jill Pole/Eustace Scrubb
Comments: 14
Kudos: 49
Collections: Narnia Fic Exchange 2020





	The Hidden Sword

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ANGSWIN](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ANGSWIN/gifts).



> "It's not only me," said Jill. "Everyone's been saying so. They've noticed it. Eleanor Blakiston heard Adela Pennyfather talking about it in our changing room yesterday. She said, 'Someone's got hold of that Scrubb kid. He's quite unmanageable this term. We shall have to attend to him next.'”  
> \-- Chapter I, The Silver Chair
> 
> Eustace buried his fine clothes secretly one night in the school grounds, but Jill smuggled hers home and wore them at a fancy-dress ball next holidays.  
> \-- Chapter XVI, The Silver Chair

“We should probably bury it all,” said Eustace, looking down on the little pile of Narnian weaponry that had been temporarily stashed in the bushes behind the gym. Balled up in his hands were the Narnian clothes he’d worn back to England, still bearing the scent of Lion’s breath. The silver-threaded fabric glittered in the starlight. 

Jill had left her dress in her dorm room, carefully folded away in the bottom of her trunk where she prayed no one would look. She’d have brought the rest of her things up that afternoon as well, except Scrubb had argued it would be hard enough to climb through windows unnoticed in the middle of the day _without_ swords and bows to get caught on the frames. 

With all the hullabaloo up by the wall, it had still felt risky tucking their weapons beneath the thickest bushes. They’d used some of the wood-craft learned from Puddleglum to disguise the pile with woodchips and dead leaves on the off-chance anyone searching for escaped criminals and/or lions might venture down towards the buildings. There hadn’t been time to do more, not without drawing attention to the very things they were trying to hide. And so Eustace and Jill had stolen away to their rooms, where they’d changed into their most innocuous school uniforms and then tried to blend in with the rest of the baffled school population. 

Now, three hours after curfew, Jill looked down at their unearthed stash and said wistfully, “I don’t really want to bury any of it.” 

“I didn’t say I _wanted_ to. But Pole, listen. We have to keep our heads down. All kinds of attention is on the school now. Just imagine what would happen if someone found a real Narnian sword hidden in the bushes.” 

It would be sent to the authorities, or maybe a museum. Jill wanted to wilt at the thought alone. But stronger than that was the connection she felt to each of her weapons: the dagger she’d worn at her hip all through the Ettinsmoor, the riding crop that had formed in her hands at Aslan’s command, the bow and quiver that had quite literally kept them fed, even the silver sword she could barely hold for herself. 

Eustace had no trouble following her thoughts. “I can’t believe you asked for Caspian’s sword.” 

“I can’t quite believe he actually gave it to me.” 

_You have better use for it than I,_ the king had told her, demonstrating a deep misunderstanding of their world as he’d unbuckled the sheath from his belt. Jill still wasn’t sure what had possessed her to even ask for the thing, except perhaps for a lingering sense of envy and the vague idea of training for next time. But Aslan had not spoken against the gift, and that felt like an approval of sorts. 

“I’m not going to bury it,” she told Eustace. 

“By gum,” he said, “It’s a bloody sword. Where else are you going to put it?” 

She squinted at the weapon. “It’ll fit under my bed. I think.” 

Eustace pinched his nose. “What if someone finds it there? _Lions,_ Pole. They’d confiscate the sword, and probably send word to your parents.”

She turned the question around on him. “So where else would _you_ put it?” 

His face grew more sour. There was another alternative, one that had probably occurred to him long before she’d thought of it. It made loads more sense than chancing the discovery of a sword under the bed. But Jill knew she wasn’t the only one who’d formed a connection to her weapons. If he called up his cousins, they’d find a safe place for the stash. But very likely, this place wouldn’t be anywhere close enough to the Experiment House. 

She also highly doubted he wanted to share his sword with those cousins, quite yet. 

“Fine,” he sighed. “Under the bed, but only until we find a better spot. The swords can go in my room, and you can take the rest--” 

“Ha ha,” interrupted Jill, “No chance of that. I’ll take my own weapons, sword included, thank you very much.”

* * *

The problem was, of course, that something Strange had occurred on the hill behind the Experiment House. Something nearly all of Them had witnessed and none of Them were keen to discuss. After the first two days of sheer mayhem, in which absolutely everyone who hadn’t been involved tried to figure out what the hell happened, there was a week of more general disorientation. The Head of the school was placed on Temporary Leave. Students who had been removed from the grounds for their safety began their return as reports confirmed there was _no_ indication of escaped criminals nor lions. A reporter poked around the grounds, interviewed a handful of students, and went off to publish an article about the perils of progressive schooling. 

Only one of Them had been retrieved by parents from the Experiment House in the immediate aftermath (which may begin to explain why most of Them were Them to begin with). The rest had gone to ground to lick their wounds. 

A week, Adela Pennyfather thought, was certainly long enough for wound licking. 

They had been hurt. More importantly, They had been humiliated. 

Someone had to pay. 

Edith Jackie had already received a lesson for her part in the whole thing. (“Jill Pole’s this way,” she’d said, and led the whole group of Them straight into the arms of those sword-bearing lunatics, and no sign of Pole there at all.) This was not enough for Adela. 

An example had to be made. 

_Someone’s got hold of that Scrubb kid,_ Adela had said only a day or two before everything at school went off the rails, _He’s quite unmanageable this term. We shall have to attend to him next._

Eustace Scrubb was already on the menu. He would do quite nicely.

* * *

The Experiment House had an unusual library collection, if going by normal school standards. There were the classics, of course, and a good number of plays. There was a whole shelf devoted to the latest scientific textbooks. There were modern novels and quite a lot of pulp fiction. And, at the very back, students had free access to a number of volumes more discerning adults might have deemed _not appropriate for your age._ In other words, it was exactly the sort of library you might expect to find at an institution that prides itself in its advanced perspectives.

It was this back shelf Jill Pole was perusing when Blakiston and Spivvins found her. 

Their approach was so quiet that a week ago, Pole might not have noticed them. A lot had happened in a week. Pole was decidedly not the same girl who’d been crying behind the gym when Edith Jackie shouted her name. She heard the approach, timid as it was, and snapped, “Can I help you?” 

“Oh,” said Lizzie Spivvins, caught off guard by Pole’s tone. “We were--I mean, we just wanted--” 

“Sorry,” said Pole, flushing as she turned around. “That was rude.” 

“Scrubb rubbing off on you?” asked Eleanor Blakiston shrewdly. 

“And just what is that supposed to mean?” 

“Nothing,” said Spivvins quickly. “We just wanted to ask you something, Pole. If that’s alright.” 

Blakiston and Spivvins had always been the right sort. Neither had ever been suck-ups to Them; in fact, Blakiston and Pole had often compared notes on The Moods and Movements of Them (a subject which all lower-tiered Experiment House students fervently studied). So she followed the pair to one of the library tables. 

“The thing is,” Blakiston began once they’d all found a seat, “Everything’s off right now, and nothing makes any sense. But _something_ has gotten Them all spooked. And if anyone knows anything, I think all us others deserve to know what it is.”

“So maybe we can do it again,” piped Spivvens. 

Jill kept her face neutral. “Everyone’s saying it was criminals on the loose.” 

“Everyone’s saying, but nobody really knows.” 

There was a pause. Jill glanced down at the three penny dreadfuls she’d set on the table. The top book’s cover featured a detective snooping through an old, ornate desk. She bet the detective would know how to avoid this sort of interrogation.

“The only people who aren’t talking are those who had something to do with it. You’re not talking, either. And we know they were after you that afternoon, Pole. Dixon heard them.” 

“They were looking,” said Jill carefully. “They didn’t catch me.” 

“But you were _there,_ weren’t you? They didn’t find you, but you were there. You saw what happened.” 

Jill didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t exactly tell them the truth, that she and Eustace had taken a three month jaunt through a fantasy world and come back with a dead king to scare the bullies straight. At the least, the girls wouldn’t believe her. At the worst, they’d think she was making fun. But she didn’t exactly want to lie to them, either. 

“Pole, please,” said Spivvens, catching her hesitance. 

Jill looked up from her books. “I don’t think I can really say. But--but They got what They deserved, I think. And the Head wasn’t--well, she wasn’t entirely wrong.” 

Both girls were looking at her with incredibly skeptical expressions. 

“The point is,” Jill continued hastily, “We can’t exactly replicate it unless a bunch of us get really good at fighting.” 

Spivvens was gaping at her in pure astonishment now. “Like fisticuffs?” 

“S-sure. But even then, I don’t think it would work.” 

“Besides,” added Blakiston, “that would just bring us down to their level.” 

Jill stopped. “Right,” she said after a moment’s consideration. 

“So we’re back where we started. Nothing we can do but hope the new Head turns out better than the old.” 

Jill looked down at her books again, and the detective conducting his investigation. “Everything’s a real mess, isn’t it? The Head’s gone, and her replacement is going to be so busy trying to make a hundred changes at once that they won’t actually notice anything that’s really going on.” She tapped her book. “We have a real opportunity, here.” 

Two pairs of eyes followed her finger to the image on the cover. “Hm,” said Blakiston. “You might be right.”

* * *

It was becoming routine to meet after curfew. Tonight, Jill was slightly late and a little breathless as she slipped around the gym. 

“I almost thought you weren’t coming,” said Eustace. 

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be daft. I just got caught up with Blakiston.” 

“An hour after curfew?” 

“We’ve been working on something.” 

She waited for him to ask, but Eustace merely shook his head with a fond exasperation. She lay down beside him. On the woodchips among the scrubby bushes, staring up at the wide night sky--it was just like the Ettinsmoor, so long as Jill tilted her head enough to cut the gym from her view. All that was missing was the sound of Puddleglum’s snores. 

Eustace had started talking about sword training. “I know the basic drills. I suppose I could try teaching you again.” 

He’d tried coaching her a couple of times at the beginning of their trek. Puddleglum had lent her his sword, and Eustace had demonstrated a few of those drills he’d learned from his cousins. But neither he nor the Marshwiggle were very good teachers, and eventually Jill had refocused on practising with the bow and dagger since those were what she’d actually have at hand in a real fight. 

But now they were back in England, and presumably had some time. “Yes,” said Jill firmly. “There’s no point in having a sword if I’m not going to use it.” 

He snorted. “ _Lions,_ Pole. Where do you think you’re going to use a sword here _?”_

She tipped her head to glare at him. “I’m not about to run off to France waving a sword. But you said yourself, if Aslan didn’t tell us it was our last visit, that means we’ll be going back. And if that’s the case, I’m damn well going to learn to use a sword before we go.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully, and added, “Brush up on my archery, too.” 

Maybe, without the weariness of a daily march through hostile lands, training would be more productive. Maybe she’d actually learn something, this time. Or maybe-- “Do you think your cousins might come visit, if you asked?” 

Eustace sucked in a breath. “Probably,” he said. “Or we could go visit them over the holidays. They could teach us a whole lot of new moves.” 

She’d already met a prince and a king and a god, so why did the thought of actually seeing Eustace’s cousins make her stomach lurch? Jill swallowed the feeling down. “I’d better catch up to your level, then. So we can learn them together.” 

“We’ll have to find a safe place to practise. And I’ll write to Edmund about how to make some practise swords, so we don’t have to try sneaking the real things out our windows every night.”

* * *

The library had become a de-facto meeting point for Jill and Blakiston. Sitting at the corner table, they could focus on their research with relative privacy while keeping an eye on the door for any unwanted visitors. Spivvens had elected to take on the look-out role and was currently stationed on a bench down the hall.

“I really wasn’t expecting to find so much,” Jill said, tapping a pen to her chin as she perused a file of documents hidden within her textbook. 

Blakiston was thumbing through a stack of papers in her satchel. “It was your idea.” 

“Doesn’t mean I thought we’d find a lot.” Jill jotted down a note, and then lifted the page she’d been reviewing. “This one, though. We can use this.” 

“We can use a lot of these,” said Blakiston, but she grinned when she read the page in Jill’s hand. 

As Jill took the page back to set carefully aside, Blakiston said a little too casually, “So, you and Scrubb, then.” 

“Me and Scrubb, what?” asked Jill, even though she knew exactly what Blakiston was implying. 

“It’s not like it’s hard to figure out, Pole.” Blakiston rested her chin on her hands, her grin much more teasing, now. “The looks you two give each other, like you’re sharing a secret? The way you avoid each other sometimes, only to go off and whisper in corners? You should know you’re really not being subtle.” 

Jill was all too aware that she’d started to blush. “It’s nothing like that.” 

“Pole, you’re sneaking out every single night. And so is Scrubb, according to Dixon.” 

“I think Dixon needs to start keeping his mouth shut.” She was horribly glad Scrubb wasn’t around to hear this. That anyone might imagine anything at all was going on between the two of them was sheer embarrassment itself. But, once again, it wasn’t like she could explain what their secret _really_ was. It was only logical that Blakiston and Dixon, and anyone else who’d been paying attention, might come to this conclusion.

“We’re just friends,” she tried. 

Blakiston shook her head. “I’ve seen the way you look at him.” 

Jill was spared the need to come up with another refutation when Spivvens burst into the library. “Pole!” she squeaked. 

Jill instinctively slammed her textbook shut at the urgency in her voice. This was exactly the sort of warning she’d received many times before, all heralding the imminent approach of Them On a Mission. She needed to hide. 

But Spivvens wasn’t finished. “They’ve got Scrubb!”

Jill’s heart skipped a beat. “Where?” 

“Cornered in the boy’s dormitory. Wait--where are you going?” 

“No time to--” Jill ground to a halt, and backtracked to the table to rip a page out of her notebook. “No time to explain,” she told Spivvens, and bolted from the room.

* * *

Spotty swung his fist. Eustace ducked but not fast enough; his vision burst into stars as the fist made contact with his eye. Eustace stumbled back, and then tripped over Pennyfather’s protruding foot. He landed hard on his back. Five sneering faces bent over him. 

“No use trying to wiggle out of this one, Scrubb,” said Pennyfather as he scooted back toward the bed. 

_This is absurd,_ he thought, _I’m a full-fledged knight of Narnia. I sailed to the end of the world, I survived a gauntlet of giants, I faced down a witch-snake. And now here I am, flat on my back beneath the same bullies who obviously didn’t learn their lesson from the flat of my sword--my sword!_

His first instinct was to simply reach beneath the bed, retrieve the sword, and wave it about in the faces of his bullies until they recognized the threat and backed off. He even got as far as one hand under the mattress. That’s when it occurred to him that waving swords around last time hadn’t exactly taught Them a lesson; They’d just gotten mad. If he did it again now? Sure, They’d scurry off in tears for the time being, but They’d only come back--or more likely, They’d avoid him and go pick on someone else. But They wouldn’t really change, They wouldn’t really learn.

And They’d know about the sword.

But Pennyfather had already taken note of his movement. “What are you reaching for, Scrubb?”

He couldn’t let Them find it. 

So he did something that Jill would later say was very brave and very stupid. “Looking for this,” he said and withdrew his empty hand, now curled in a loose fist with a single finger raised. In the following shock at his obscene defiance, he kicked out his leg and landed a lucky shot, nearly toppling one of the Garrett twins.

Of course, this did nothing to help his chances of escaping the encounter unharmed. Unfortunately, it also did not distract Them from the bed. 

Ignoring Garrett’s pained cries, Pennyfather ran her gaze from Eustace to the bed he was leaning against. The quilt had come untucked in the spot where he’d desperately reached for his sword. _Oh Aslan,_ prayed Eustace, _Don’t look under there. Don’t--_

But it was too late. Pennyfather dropped to her knees at Eustace’s side, gave him a sneer, and thrust her hand under the mattress. There wasn’t time to think of a distraction; her eyes lit up and she triumphantly removed her hand.

Caught in her fist was the shimmering blue-and-silver fabric of his Narnian tunic. 

Her triumph turned to confusion. She examined the cloth, rubbing the silk between her fingers wonderingly. “Hang on,” said Spotty slowly, “I’ve seen that before.” 

_I’m sunk,_ thought Eustace, _They’ll realize I was one of the so-called criminals on the hill. They’ll find the sword and tell everyone and never leave me be._

If They’d been left undisturbed for another half a minute, that might have been the case. But just as Spotty spoke, there came from the hall the clatter of running footsteps. The door to Eustace’s dorm room slammed open. 

“Hey!” shouted Jill. 

And everything stopped. 

She stood in the doorway like an avenging angel. Her hair was a tangled cloud about her face, her cardigan had slipped off one shoulder, one of her socks had fallen to her ankle, and she glared with a ferocity Eustace hadn’t seen since the Underworld. This was Jill as she’d been in Narnia, a warrior chosen by Aslan himself who’d braved weather and giants to break a witch’s enchantment. No matter that she still wore her schoolgirl guise; at this moment, her true self could not be hidden. 

“Adela Pennyfather,” said Jill, and it sounded like a threat. 

“Pole?” said Pennyfather, more confused than alarmed. “This doesn’t concern you.” 

Jill didn’t budge. “I’ve been looking for you, Adela. I found something you might be interested in.” 

Spotty and the twins were dead silent, their attention locked on Pennyfather as if waiting for their cues. Jill had provided enough of a distraction that Eustace thought he could maybe get the jump on one of them, if he moved quick enough. But he didn’t know what Jill was planning, or if she had any plan at all. She wasn't giving him any signals. So far, she hadn’t even given him more than a passing glance. 

Pennyfather’s eyes narrowed. “Get out. I’ll deal with you later. Maybe, if I like what you have to offer, I’ll forgive you for this interruption.” 

At this declaration, Jill’s eyebrows shot up. “There’s not a chance you’ll _like_ it. That’s not the point.” 

“Then tell me, Pole. What _is_ the point?” 

One corner of Jill’s mouth twitched. It was not a nice smile. From her pocket, she withdrew a folded piece of paper and held it out. Pennyfather stared at it a moment before swiftly rising to her feet and snatching the page from Jill’s hand. 

The only sound in the room was the crinkle as the paper was unfolded. Pennyfather scanned its contents, mouth flattening as she read. Eustace watched her eyes travel down the page before jumping back to the top for a second pass. 

“Where did you find this?” 

Jill shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter where, does it? I know about it, and I’m not the only one.”

Pennyfather stared at her. 

“The thing is, Adela, we’re perfectly happy to keep your secrets. We’re not like you; we don’t enjoy spreading nasty rumours.” She paused. “Not unless you make us.” 

For a moment longer, no one moved. _It’s not going to work,_ thought Eustace with a sinking heart. _She’s not going to care, she’ll just retaliate._

But instead, Pennyfather’s face pinched. “Don’t think you’ll get away with this, Pole,” she spat, and then brushed right past Jill and out of the room. 

Only when Spotty and the twins had fled after her, more in confusion over their leader’s retreat than anything else, did Jill finally sigh and sag against the doorframe. Finally, she let herself look to Eustace, who still sat dumbfounded on the floor. “I didn’t think that would work,” she admitted in a weak voice. The look of Narnia was already fading from her, leaving behind the schoolgirl in the mismatched socks. 

A clamour of voices came down the hall, not from Them but other students who had overheard at least some of the commotion and were now preparing to investigate. “I should leave,” Jill said, looking over her shoulder. She gave Eustace half a smile and slipped away, as if she had never been there.

* * *

“So,” said Eustace, leaning on the shovel he’d borrowed from the gardener’s shed. “We’ve resorted to blackmail, is that it?” 

It was the first he’d spoken to her since the events in his dorm room that afternoon. Jill hadn’t known if he’d been processing his close call or sulking over her interference. Even now, she couldn’t quite tell. Jill peered up at him from beneath the scraggly, leafless bushes. “Well, we’d already given the swords a try. I figured we might want a backup plan for when They realized the violent criminals were never coming back.” 

“We _could_ come back,” said Eustace darkly. His eye was still puffed and swollen. “We’ve got the swords for it.” He jabbed at the air with his shovel, and then used it to measure the depth of his hole. “Think this is deep enough?” 

Jill didn’t even bother to look. “It’s not like you’re burying anything large. I still don’t know why you’re doing this at all.” 

Beside the hole waited a little bundle wrapped in brown paper and string, and a wooden box just big enough to hold it. Eustace dropped the shovel and knelt down to carefully pack the bundle inside the box. “They saw the shirt, Pole. Another minute, and they would have known we were the ones on the hill with them. I can’t let them find it again, and we both know Pennyfather’s going to try and get another look.” 

Jill sighed. “The blackmail won’t work entirely, will it?” 

“You know it won’t. Even if Pennyfather eases up, one of the others will just take her place. It’ll take more of a… a long campaign, rather than a quick flashy move, to really declaw Them.” 

“I bought you some time, at least.”

“And now we’ll know they’re gunning for us both. Better us than--” 

“--anyone else,” finished Jill. “I agree. At least _we’ve_ dealt with worse. We can handle Them. And it’s not like school bullies are going to try to eat us for an Autumn Feast.” 

Eustace shuddered. “I should hope not.” He hesitated. “Should I ask how you found it? Whatever you had against Pennyfather.” 

She shrugged. “You know how the Head thought all of Them were _interesting psychological cases_ and would talk to Them one-on-one for hours? She took an awful lot of notes, and left those all behind in the filing cabinets in her office when she was placed on leave.” 

“Oh no,” said Eustace, starting to see where this was going.

“It’s going to be forever before anyone else thinks to look in those files again, and it wasn’t hard to get to them after curfew the other night. And long story short, Pennyfather liked to rat on her friends during those sessions, and the Head wrote it all down.” 

Eustace shook his head ruefully. “I don’t even know what to say.” 

“A _thank you_ wouldn’t hurt.” 

“Thank you, Jill.” He sealed up his box and set it at the bottom of the hole. “I feel like I should say something.” 

“Dearly beloved, we have gathered today to bid farewell to some truly beautiful clothes that really did not deserve this fate--” 

“Sure,” said Eustace, ignoring the sarcasm, “That’s good enough.” And he picked up the shovel to start pushing dirt back into the hole. 

Jill waited until he’d finished, listening to the stamp of his shoes as he packed down the dirt. “You know you can’t leave the sword under your bed, either.” 

The stamping stopped. The shovel clattered to the ground again, and Eustace dropped down beside her. “In your own words,” he told her, “I’m not going to bury it.” 

Jill laughed. “I suppose I have a little more room under my own mattress. Maybe. If you ask nicely.” 

She glanced over just in time to catch the good-hearted grimace that crossed his face. “Jill Pole, wilt thou share thy weapons storage?” 

“Sure.” She crossed her arms behind her head and looked up at the sky again. _Just like the Ettinsmoor,_ she thought, even though it wasn’t quite. No snoring, and the stars were different, but at least Eustace was still here at her side. She thought that might be enough, for now.


End file.
